Singapore's SembCorp Marine Ltd has been awarded a long-term contract by Australia's North West Shelf venture (NWS) to provide drydocking, refit, and other marine services for the NWS fleet of LNG ships.

This is the first time that a major LNG consortium has committed itself to a long-term maintenance and refit contract in the region.

With the signing of this contract, NWS LNG vessels are scheduled to undergo maintenance drydocking and repairs including several major upgrades in SembCorp Marine's Sembawang Shipyard and Jurong Shipyard, at an estimated US$45 million (S$75 million) over 5 years. The Northwest Seaeagle will be the first vessel to be drydocked under the contract, and will be first of three NWS LNG carriers scheduled for refits in 2005.

The contract, signed in Perth, Australia, by Nick Harrison, General Manager of North West Shelf Shipping and Ms Lee-Lin Wong, Executive Director and General Manager of Sembawang Shipyard Pte Ltd, commits the retrofitting and dry-docking of a number of NWS Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) carriers to SembCorp Marine's Sembawang Shipyard and Jurong Shipyard for a five-year term with an option for extension of the contract.

The NWS venture owns and operates nine LNG ships which require dry docking services every 30 months. Approximately half of the refits will be performed by SembCorp Marine, while the remainder of the refits will be performed in the facilities of the original Japan Consortium builders, who have a separate agreement with NWS to provide similar type of services.

In addition to the conventional refit scope work, a number of other major tasks are planned for the next five years, including among others, the replacement of halon fire fighting systems with environmentally friendly alternatives, TBT paint removal, and vessel life extension.